The Cardinals will play four non-Division I schools — two in the preseason and two in the regular season — this season because of preexisting contracts signed before Lamar hired Knight.

Knight was asked about his scheduling after Tuesday’s game.

So he talked about that and other issues, including dropping a hint that the Southland might expand by two more schools “after next year.”

Here’s what he said.

On playing preseason games or closed scrimmages: I think the best thing to do is have two closed scrimmages. That’s the best way to do it. My hands are tied this year. But I promised the administration and the fans that. There’s no more of that. We got something out of it. But we’ve got to win the conference.

I’ve got coaching talking about it and complaining about it saying, well you’re going to want those four wins back. We’re a one-bid league. It’s not like anyone right now is going to get an at-large bid. The whole deal is you have to win the conference to get that automatic NIT bid first, and then you have to win the tournament to go to the NCAA. To me, you’re not helping your team at all. Yes, you’re helping your coaching record, but I’ve been fired. I’m not trying to save my butt.

I’m here to win championships. To do that, you’ve got to play a tough schedule. Then if you do that, you start beating those teams here and there, you get your name out there. No one knew about Gonzaga 10 years ago, Butler five years ago, and now St. Mary’s has come on because they’re taking a chance with their schedule, beaten some teams, they’re getting some notoriety. Now, those leagues are actually getting more than one bid.

And if our league wants to get more than one bid, everyone around the leagued has got to toughen up their schedule. I think it’s great to add Oral Roberts. That helps us from a basketball situation. I think this is a really good league. Our commissioner has been greatly proactive, going after teams. And, we’ve already, I can’t talk about teams we’re going to add two more teams after next year. This is a great league. We’ve got to get tougher schedule.

On the high number of road games early: I just look at it as it gets us ready for conference. That’s my main goal. I tried to explain it to my kids, when you’re at a BCS school, you schedule 10 wins. You’ve got the money. Here at a smaller school, I don’t think people realize I’m told I’ve got to raise a set amount of money for guarantee games. With the number, it really takes three of those. That’s three road games you’ve got to play against a BCS school. Then from the standpoint, we don’t have the money to buy games, we’ve got to home-and-home, so that’s what causes adding an away game. That’s part of being a smaller school. We knew that going in.

I kind of look at it from the standpoint it gets us ready for conference. Now if we were sitting here and we’ve got four or five teams going from the league to the tournament, yes, we’d be sitting here worrying about our RPI, if we get ranked. That doesn’t matter in the Southland. To me, it’s just getting these kids ready. Then I’ve got to be careful. If we get in a bad stretch in the preseason, we can’t bury these kids because I put them in that position from a scheduling standpoint, and I’ve got to keep them focused that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

On who has called him to say he’ll want those four wins back: I’ve had guys call. Assistants. Head coaches. That’s great. Yeah, my preseason record would be better and then we’ll get our butts beat in conference. I’ve been there. I was at Tech, our second year, when we went to the NIT. We had a great year, we were ranked as high as 15th. It didn’t mean anything in the league. We ended up losing the last seven. We ended up going to the NIT instead of the NCAA. I will take a great conference over a great preseason anytime.